OHIO First automated toll road in the US?

OHIO

First automated toll road in the US?

Butler county Regional Highway (Butler Hwy) in the northern section of Cincinnati OH could be the first fully automated toll road in the US. An official told us they are looking to build the new toll road without toll collectors.

The highway (close to the old 2-lane OH-129) is being built as a spur off I-75 west covering 17km to the industrial city of Hamilton in Butler County. It is a project of the Butler County Transportation Improvement District (BCTID), and is a relatively modest bit of road by national standards — about $100m of 2x2-lane motorway with 4 interchanges. But even as they are planning to begin construction, there are moves to extend the highway east and west, and the Butler Hwy could one day be part of a major east-west route across the area linking I-71, I-75, major arterials and I-74 — a northern arc road for the Cincinnati area. There is a major push east of the end of the present stage of the Butler Hwy at I-75 in neighboring Warren County to find an alignment to extend the highway 12km or so through to I-71. And Butler Co is already studying possible alignments for a second stage that would go 10km west from the the current western terminus at OH-4 to US-27.

They are a resourceful group at BCTID, a joint powers entity formed by the county (pop 300k) and several 5-digit population towns. They have developed considerable local clout by finding ways around old problems. The area was plagued by opponents of new highways, whose hostility back in the late 50s forced I-75’s relocation eastward, and made Hamilton the largest city in the nation without any motorway standard connections to the interstate system. The BCTID was faced with the task of winning support to drive the road through a number of developed areas and right by quite new subdivisions. It overcame some quite fierce opposition from residents who’d bought their places, not expecting to have a highway alongside them. BCTID has just completed acquisition of over 240 properties and demolition of 109 houses to provide right-of-way. Others have been assuaged with negotiated realignments, land swaps, extensive custom-designed sound walling, wetlands mitigation, elaborate landscape works, and realignment and longer bridging over a pretty natural creek. From beginning of design through land acquisition and permitting and construction, the whole Butler Hwy project should be complete and open in 48 months.

Hamilton dying: Hamilton was losing its industry in the 70s and 80s, and by 1990 more businesses were saying they’d leave if traffic and accessibility problems were not addresssed. As rural land was subdivided for housing, the area was becoming a bunch of dormitory suburbs for Cincinnati area commuters. Population has soared 30% in the 1990s. The business tax base was too small to cope, and threatening to decline, until the TID arrived early 1994. Its first big highway improvement came to fruition Dec 97 — a new $24m diamond interchange on I-75, at Union Centre Boulevard, about 15km southeast of Hamilton. The interchange (Exit 19) was built as the centerpiece of a 3,000 acre Union Centre (chic French spelling) a commerical development designed to eventually produce 21,000 jobs in light industry, office parks and retailing. For example Beiersdorf AG, manufacturer of Curad bandages is building a large distribution facility there, based on air freight Frankfurt-Cincinnati. Isotoner will have a corporate HQ.

With such a serious commitment to improved transport the area is turning around economically. Valeo, a French manufacturer is beginning manufacturing of heating and airconditioning equipment with 250 workers in an abandoned plumbing factory in Hamilton, a business that only moved in because of the prospect of direct access to the interstate system via the Butler Hwy spur.

This is typical of many local communities that have seen state and federal road proposals come and go without any pavement ever being laid, because of some noisy opposition. Only a silent majority wants better roads! In 1993 local leadership in Butler Co with the support of a state congressman got legislation passed to allow the formation of local TIDs. Butler Co was one of the most aggressive in using the TID to get things moving in their area. BCTID, is doing more for the area’s roads in10 years than the state and feds have delivered in the past century, says a local official.

They move fast by present day US standards. From decision-to-go through design to opening was 24 months for the interchange. Local developers put in $7m and BCTID $17m — not a cent of state or federal money.

BCTID has developed political support on a stream of well produced pamphlets, ads and public meetings in which the case for new roads is pitched. It has worked all the complicated innovatory financing mechanisms and recently raised $158m for an ambitious set of major road works (Smith Barney and Seasongood & Mayer bought the revenue bonds at 5.31%.) On the Butler Hwy pike it has an extraordinary agreement with the state of Ohio whereby it, the county TID, will finance and build the new toll highway, then formally lease it to the state DOT and receive lease payments annually from the state, guaranteeing it an annual lease revenue stream to service the debt incurred to build the new road. But the TID is free to raise tolls on the highway too!

Tolling: BCTID see tolls as a way of providing money for maintaining the Butler Hwy and for supporting a bunch of ancillary surface arterial road improvements — $40m worth or so in design — that they plan (see map).

Wilbur Smith’s traffic and revenue study for the toll road is based on flat tolls (75c for the full length of the road, with 25c and 35c tolls for partial trips), the standard WSA formula with a mainline plaza midway and partial ramp plazas at intermediate interchanges. It projects modest traffic and revenue as shown in the table. The WSA design involves at least a lane each direction of highway speed e-toll at the mainline plaza and dedicated e-toll lanes at the ramp plazas so regulars would “virtually never have to stop to pay a toll.” For patrons without transponders there would be collectors at the mainline plaza while the ramp plazas would be unattended — automatic coin machine. The trouble with that is it leads to high levels of non-payment. WSA says 25%. Then it needs cameras and an administrative system to track the “violators. ”

Alternatively BCTID could go to a “cashless toll road” with no provision for payment on the toll road at all. It would then record images of the license-plates of patrons without e-tags and bill them by mail as patrons instead of as violators. Being close by two other states (IN, KY) this would require access to the motor registry data of 3 states, but they already do that on a routine basis in Cincinnati for parking and traffic violations, and BCTID would probably have to do it against violators of its unmanned lanes.

Cash toll roads are hampered in their pricing by the coin system and the cost of making change. They need to price usually to the quarter or at least to the dime. Worst of all it is awkward to vary toll rates by time of day. Yet the Butler pike will be far better value in rush hours, DeRosa says, saving about 20 minutes of travel compared to surface 2-laners. Out of rush hours it will save perhaps 5 minutes, which makes a flat rate toll plain dumb — too high off-peak and too low on-peak for the varying value the road provides to patrons. Flexibility and fine-tuning of toll rates would be a major factor in favor of the fully cashless approach.

BCTID people have made the trip up to 407-ETR in Toronto to see that cashless pike in operation and they were impressed. “We want to go as fully automatic if we possibly can, if indeed tolls are used on this project,” says Karen Lane DeRosa at BCTID. They will start construction of the major roadway in May without any commitment to toll plaza design, so there is time for proposals. It could be the first cashless toll road in the US. A technology showplace in its own right? (Contact Darrell Barger or Karen Lane DeRosa, BCTID 513 942 4700)